Review: Whizz Kid – Covered In Santa Wheels

If there’s one label you can rely on to produce oddball electronica, it would be Bearsuit Records, whose worldwide range of artists is matched by a similar amount of invention. As the duo of J-Kane and Harold Nono hail from Belgium and Scotland respectively, this is a short distance collaboration relative to other projects on the label and ‘Covered In Santa Wheels’ is basically a taster for an album to follow later this year.

After an apparently random beginning to ‘Falling Out Of Trees, Falling Down Hills’, the various analog instruments join together to present a cosmopolitan jazz track not unlike the kind Mice Parade used to produce a decade ago. ‘Charly Stories’ relies a little too much on clicks and whirring objects but it pays off when the easy listening hook kicks in. Then ‘Trapeze’ features a noirish tune but the arrangement is so playful, it’s more likely to generate smiles rather than hard stares. The old adage of saving the best to last is definitely true though, since ‘I Fall In The Grandad Bus’ hits just the right balance between idiosyncrasy and emotional pull.

Much like other Bearsuit artists, Whizz Kid sound like they’re in a world of their own but they possess the spirit of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop allied with the sweetly nostalgic noise of Black Moth Super Rainbow. Somewhere out of all the sonic clutter, the end result is the musical equivalent of a shop of toy clocks.